Tragedy touches SCV family

Earl Biggs, left, and his son Jeff Biggs, of Valencia, smile for a photo. Earl Biggs was killed Saturday in a hit-and-run collision.

Earl Biggs had just left his 77th birthday party — blew out his candles, ate the last piece of a cake specially made for him, said goodbye to his friends — when he stepped onto the street where he was killed.

Biggs, father of sports broadcaster and Valencia resident Jeff Biggs, was struck and killed Saturday night by a motorist on Coldwater Canyon Road near Sherman Way in North Hollywood, where he lived.

“My father didn’t deserve to die this way,” said Jeff Biggs, a familiar voice to thousands of listeners in Southern California. Known as “Biggsy,” he’s at the helm of the pre- and post-Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball radio shows for AM 830.

“We just want whoever did this to do the right thing,” he said.

“He was a big guy with a big heart who loved people,” Biggs said. “His friends baked him a cake, and he was going to his car when he was struck.

“He just turned 77.”

Earl Biggs was born in Albuquerque, N.M., and moved to the San Fernando Valley with his family when he was a boy.

In 1965, he opened his own sign-making shop in North Hollywood and stayed with the craft he loved his entire life.

“One of his signs is hanging in the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville,” Biggs said proudly of his father.

At 76, his father was still making signs and running his business.

And while he stayed pretty much the same throughout his career, the North Hollywood neighborhood around him did not.

Earl Biggs was a happy guy with a bad knee who trusted everyone, his son said.

He was a sports fan who loved dirt-bike racing.

The earliest memory Jeff has of the Santa Clarita Valley are of his father driving him to Indian Dunes to race dirt bikes. Jeff was 4 years old.

“He loved the (Los Angeles) Lakers — something he passed on to me. In ’09, when the Angels won the division and I was celebrating, he left a message on my cell phone, telling me how proud he was of me.

“I saved it. It’s still on my phone,” he said.

Jeff Biggs has manned radio sports commentary shows for every major radio station in Los Angeles and has traveled with the Lakers, Angeles, Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Raiders when they were in Los Angeles.

“I’ve been overwhelmed by the people online and on Facebook,” he said. “To say ‘I’m touched’ would be an understatement. I’m blessed.”